


DW drabbles

by andorgyny



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-09
Updated: 2016-02-09
Packaged: 2018-05-19 08:08:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 23
Words: 7,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5960224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andorgyny/pseuds/andorgyny
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All of my old DW drabbles together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

When he visits her room, he never lingers. The pink duvet on the bed remains as rumpled as it had been when they had made easy morning love (sunshine, brewing tea, much too domestic for his taste) the day of the wall and invisible claws slicing through his chest, laying ruin to what had been a pair of healing hearts.

Fear. And agony. Oh, so much agony.

The universes had committed a heinous crime in stealing his Rose. Because who was he, without his pink and yellow girl in his arms, without the soft thrumming of her single, human heart against his palm, without her Just-for-Doctor smile, without her amber brilliance?

He, who had bowed to her alter as she burned like a raging sun, the humble follower of a golden goddess with hazel eyes and skin gentle like the sun dipping into the sea. He, who had forgotten all of the rules because she dared to ask. He, who had never told her, not once allowed her to look inside his mind, never even contemplated a mind link, a silver thread winding through their blood, their arteries, their hearts.

Because one day, there will have been a wall. Or a bullet. Or a pulse twitching to a stop. And the Doctor, an expert in the field of the leave-taking, hadn’t wanted to hurt.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers to a girl on the other side of the fall.

This does not feel like self-preservation.


	2. Chapter 2

He presses a hand against the wood and smiles. Blue and crisp and the slight pulsing warmth of life under his palm, waiting for him to come aboard and run his fingers over her.

Behind him, Rose blinks back tears. He can hear her heart racing; the excitement and adrenalin and anticipation courses through her body as he pushes the door open.

And she is beautiful, his ship–all golden and white, with glass panes all around the walls like scales, and ooh! In the center of the room, there is a willow growing out from the organic coral behind the glass, a weeping willow in his ship, and as he gets a closer look he realizes that no, the willow is his console, and it’s not really a willow, for it has silver leaves that catch the dim blue light and cast reflections against the walls like diamonds.

Rose comes up behind him with a gasp and slips her hands around his waist. “She’s…” He smiles, turning back into her arms and pressing a soft kiss to her lips.

“Fantastic.”

And with a flick of a switch and a mad grin, they’re off to see just what this brave new universe of theirs has to offer.


	3. Chapter 3

She’s a wild simmering thing on a breeze, quiet and raw and so very angry as she kneels in warm pink sand. Skin red from tears that have long since dried. There’s a stillness about her that he’s not used to seeing.

His Rose is always on the move.

“I’ve never seen this room before,” she says. Runs the hands of a warrior through the sand around her. “I can barely comprehend how on Earth the TARDIS has a beach inside of her.”

He sits beside her. “Time and Relative Dimension in Space,” he says.

She chuckles, though it sounds a bit too cold for his taste. “I thought those were just words you thought sounded nice together.”

The sea is calm today. Of course, he knows that it’s not really a sea but a pool, an absurdly massive wave pool with just enough width as to create the illusion of a horizon, out there by the mist and the setting sun that’s never a sun.

He watches her as she examines a found conch shell, and for a moment he can see them sitting here, each and every day, for the rest of their days. A place she’ll be safe from storms. Covered in sand and swimsuit soaked through, a tad uncomfortable, but safe. Oh, so very safe.

He blinks. The image is gone.

“My granddaughter came up with it. Calling her the TARDIS, that is.”

He feels her honey eyes on his face. “Your granddaughter,” she murmurs. And waits.

He knows she won’t push him, knows she’ll wait for him to open up to the light, to her light. Her sunlight.

She is his sun.

And the sun always rises after a storm.

Except when it doesn’t.

He keeps the conch. Can’t keep the girl with the windswept hair.


	4. Chapter 4

This is just one of many moments in flux.

They are a contradiction. Young and old; human and not. They are forbidden by laws and doctrines and clauses, by tired bodies in tired robes that burned to ashes and stardust long before her time, before she first burst out into the universe, all red-faced and bitter tears and confusion, before she learned to walk or read or jump or play tag or speak French or kiss boys or fuck men.

 

Sex in time; euphoria in decay.

He’d keep her forever, he says. Her forever, his forever, forever and ever. Keep her in a bigger-on-the-inside box with a lock, a little box he could look into. And she’d be safe in that box, safe from time and laws and lines in sand on faraway beaches.

But she’d never smile for him. She’d never hold his hand. He can’t imagine anything worse than a world without Rose, except perhaps a world with a Rose broken by his own fears and possessiveness.

So she’ll only ever live in a box big enough for two. And he’ll follow his laws, until they break him.

 

They haven’t broken him yet.

“We just can’t,” he says, not even trying to meet her eyes.


	5. Chapter 5

He loves the look of her in his shirts. Well, he loves the look of her in anything, if he’s honest, but yes, oh yes, doesn’t she look particularly delicious all wrapped up in his tux shirt, his precious girl with her sleep-mussed hair all golden and burning in the early morning sun as she opens the blinds and lets in the gasping light of dawn, and he’s moving like he’s never moved before, pulling out of the linens and into the musk-stained air like a wild thing, like a spinning, aching need on the cusp of desire, and wraps his arms around her, pressing himself against her.

She laughs like bells ringing, like a wedding or a funeral or the birth of something new, and turns in his arms, pressing her morning lips into his kisses and melting against the white frame of the window, the curtains billowing around them in the soft, supple breeze, a breath like hers onto his jaw as she pulls him closer by his hipbones, leaning against the frame as he drapes a slender leg around his waist and waits for her to grab onto the wall for leverage/support before he taps softly against her other leg, and she smiles at him and murmurs something that tastes like love against his lips as she jumps a bit and slides an arm around his shoulder, drawing him nearer and he slides in and she cries out.

I love you, he whispers against her breasts, covered by his/her shirt and he does, oh he loves this woman, this girl–the push/pull pleasure of fucking/makelove-ing against the window–this beauty, this goddess who drank from the cup of Time herself and bought him chips at a chip shop. It’s never enough, he’ll never tire of her sighs and gasps and moaning crying sobbing and it hurts it’s so lovely–she’s… so very lovely–

And it’s everything and nothing and all things true.


	6. Chapter 6

They honeymoon on (the planet) Barcelona. There’s a port city in the southern hemisphere called Cataluna, home to both the peaceful long-necked Barcelonans and humans for thousands and thousands of years.

Their fully-grown TARDIS lands near the docks without much of a fuss (she’s a bit temperamental in her youth). Humming a Billie Holiday tune as they step out into the sun, the Doctor slips a possessive arm around Rose’s waist and presses his lips to her hair.

“So, my fair lady, where to first? Crepes on the beach? We could rent a sailboat for the day, and then samba the night away at this brilliant club that I used to go to back in the other universe–hopefully it’s still around,” he adds, grinning down at her and pulling her closer to him. “Who knows? The owners were thinking of turning it into a church the last time I went some, oh, two-hundred years ago.” He waggles his eyebrows at her. “Of course, we might be able to use a bit of prayer, considering last night.”

“Says the existentialist,” Rose replies as she leans her head onto his shoulder. “You know what I’d like to do right about now?”

“Your all-too-eager-to-please, positively brilliant and, if I may say so, devastatingly handsome husband?”

She rolls her eyes at him as a schoolgirl rides by on a motorbike. “Is that Time Lord for ‘go look at the dogs with no noses?’”

“Only if it involves you taking off your sundress,” he says, toying with the yellow cotton covering up her bikini-clad curves. Laughing, she wraps her arms around his neck and kisses him soundly. Her deft little fingers slide into his hair as he grins against her lips. “Now this is what I’m talking about.”

“You’ve been talkin’ these dogs up for two-ish bodies now.”

There’ll be time for swimming and dancing and wining and dining later, he supposes. There’ll be all the time in the world.


	7. Chapter 7

Stars spin above their heads, winking down through the window, teasing and taunting like they always seem to do these days.

It’s a reminder of so many missed opportunities, of lips never touched with a quivering finger, of sighs and gasps never echoing through winding corridors, of words never once spoken.

Or at least, so she presumes. No man or angel or Lord of Time could possibly possess such sweeping regret without the ache of unfulfilled, unconsummated love croaking in his lungs.

Once, when she had been young and full of childish fancies, Reinette would have eagerly set to making a life for her fireplace man (preferably a life in which she’d figure heavily); once, she’d have entertained notions of betraying her lover for this stranded god. And perhaps once, she’d have allowed herself to selfishly deny him a second chance, although of this she is not certain. Surely she is not that cruel, but then, she was always a rather spoiled child.

She could keep him as a sort of caged bird, all for herself, clip his wings and watch him trill his melancholy song, the song all starved and desperate men sing.

But a bird or a boy cannot remain caged without his very essence shattering, without his glow fading.

He’ll just starve without his mate and his fleeting, golden girl.

She might not be an egalitarian by nature, but Reinette believes she’ll never let a man starve on her watch.


	8. Chapter 8

The day she leaves prison, she’s almost immediately cuffed (with deadlocks). Still, she’s out and she’s free(ish) and this must be what life is like for the Other people, for the ones with conventional work and two-point-four kids, who holiday on Barcelona by air shuttle, who haven’t taken the fall for a great(ish) man and learned first-hand that gods are vastly overrated.

River Song would be lying if she said she wasn’t bitter. She wears an invisible ring on her finger and it keeps her in her place, tamed and domesticated like a good dog. (She remembers a story about a bad wolf and wonders why he never married her).

“Do as you’re told,” he said in a world that never existed, before a ceremony that never happened.

Well, he isn’t even here to invite her home. Wherever that may be. A beep from her wrist reminds her that she can be free, if she so chooses.

She can go anywhere.


	9. Chapter 9

A blue box materializes by a marketplace in Florence, 1504. After a moment, a blonde woman in a long red gown and a dark velvet jacket steps out of the box. For all of her elegant attire, she holds herself like a working woman, sturdy and proud. Behind her is a man in a brown suit who locks the door of the box before outsiders can catch a glimpse inside.

"So… we’re in Italy?" Rose asks.

“Yessiree… oh dear, remind me to never say that one again.” He takes her hand. “1501, brilliant year. This is the height of the Italian Renaissance, Rose. Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael. Three of the greatest artists who have ever lived are working right here, right now.”

"I just want a nice big bowl of pasta, if I’m honest. I’m starved."

The Doctor laughs. “I know just the place.”

 

They stroll down the street hand in hand, bellies stuffed and hearts content. He tells her about how he trained with Michelangelo while she had been stuck as a statue in Ancient Rome, learning to sculpt and missing her every second of his months away from her.

“Months? You were gone for months? And you just left me turned to stone?”

He rolls his eyes. “Rose, we’ve been over this. It was only days for you. Besides, think about how I felt, all on my own except for that grumpy old nag looking over my shoulders all the time, interrupting my work. You’re lucky I got that sculpture done at all, the way he carried on.”

"Wanna go for a visit?" she asks, grinning up at him.

"Absolutely!"

 

Michelangelo is not the nicest man she has ever met, but boy can he sculpt. His studio is filled with both unfinished and completed sculptures and drawing, and Rose finds herself staring at the nearly complete David for so long that the Doctor ends up glaring at the sculpture in envy. She smirks at him.

"I’d like to meet that model," she says quietly.

"Not particularly impressive," the Doctor replies, in a huff. Rose meets his eyes for a moment before laughing.

"You’ve got nothing to worry about in that department."


	10. Chapter 10

She rises from the bed at the influx of light through the window. Smiling sleepily to herself, she recalls images from the night before and gazes down at her Doctor. He is rolled up in linen sheets, his bare chest exposed to the sunlight. She lets the sheet fall from her body as she stands up.

Bending down to where she threw her stola hours earlier, she picks it up and gives it a quick sniff. Not terrible, although she will definitely be needing a change of clothes soon.

She slips her knickers on just as he groans his entrance into consciousness. “G’morning, sleepy head,” she says.

"Morning." He gazes at her with a lazy smile on his face. "How are you feeling?"

She looks up at him and grins. “Fantastic.”

"Come back to bed."

"Don’t want to give our hosts a heart attack, Doctor." He rolls over onto his stomach, giving her a delicious view of his bum. She studies it for a moment before shaking her head. "We have to go find the TARDIS, and that could take all day, what with your parking."

"Oi!"

"It’s true!" He sits up, his hard cock protesting more than he ever could at her denial. She bites her lip. He is so very beautiful, all lean lines and subtle musculature. Regardless of her refusal earlier, she feels heat gather in the pit of her stomach.

It’s like he knows the exact minute she gives in. He grins and holds out a hand to her, while pressing the heel of his other hand down into his erection. He grunts.

"I dreamed of you," he says as she falls back onto the bed. "Last night. I felt us fuck again and again and again. Never letting up, never backing off. Just thrust after thrust after thrust."

She lets her legs fall apart. He leans over her, begins pressing heated kisses to her abdomen until he reaches where she’s already wet for him. He pulls her knickers off, tosses them behind him somewhere as he dives into her, licking and suckling her clit and pushing fingers into her.

"You’re so lovely," he murmurs, picking up his speed. She clenches around his fingers and bites her lip to hold back her moans. Her hips buck; her toes curl.

She crests so quickly, it’s almost embarrassing, but then in their time together, she’s learned to never be embarrassed around him.

After a while, she comes to and smirks, gazing down at his cock. She looks at him, meets his eyes. Pulls him over her, kisses his neck. Spreads her legs.

He fills her so nicely, she wonders if she’ll ever get over just how well they match one another. And then he begins to move, and it’s all desperate pleas and quiet encouragements whispered into damp skin. He thrusts, babbling inane things about lemon trees. Limoncello. How it would taste off of her skin.

She laughs—she’s never had as much fun as she has in bed with this man—and tells him she’d rather have wine, Italian red wine, sipping a glass of red wine in a bath with him and her candles on their TARDIS, and then: oh! She’s coming again, and he’s following her, and he presses his lips to her throat to keep from waking the whole damn household.

Later, they go to Positano and buy a bottle of Limoncello right where it’s made.


	11. Chapter 11

Long ago she had a name, a home, a lover. It might not have been too long, though—time moves oddly in her realm. It might have been a day or a millennium since the reckoning, since the choice and the fall. She might never know.

The Void is nothing like he said it would be. It is a world onto itself, a desolate place but a place nonetheless, a mighty bridge between worlds with walls crumbled on either side. A home for the homeless, for the lost and the brave. 

There is no wind. No scents, no flowers.

She builds herself a castle with her mind. A thought, and it is done. She is more beautiful than ever, the mirrors say, with her gowns and her long, wild hair. She is a wolf, a child, a woman. She is the ruler of a kingdom with no subjects. 

Until she finds the Daleks. They have killed the other kind, the Cybermen, and they stay in the woods that surrounds her castle. They are scared, they are frozen with fear and the very knowledge that this is wrong, that nothing about this place will ever be right. And so they give up their fight, kneel to the girl with the golden eyes, and suddenly they are men, they are soldiers with faces and bodies, and they really do kneel. 

She has an army. An army of would-be killers, of the ones who sent her here, but she is not bitter. She is a woman with nothing to lose, and so she is what she never thought she would be: forgiving.

They stand strong around the castle’s perimeters, ready to fight the unseen creatures that preceded them into the Void. Because there are creatures—there are howls and cries and foot prints in the dust. 

Her Dalek-men protect her, but soon they fall, one by one, to things that should not exist. But then, she should not exist—and she has learned not to believe in impossibility. 

With the final man left, she locks herself in her room and asks him to dine with her. She is lonely, the last of her kind, and he is the last of his.

"We will die tonight," she says quietly over food that appears without servants or cooks. "And so we must be prepared."

"My dear Queen, it is impossible to kill the dead."

She looks at him, eyes stinging as her mind catches up to everything that has happened. The sweaty palms, the loosening grasp, the lever, the fall. The screams of agony, not ripped from only her throat. 

"This is Hell," she whispers. "We are not alive, but we are living. Ghosts playing pretend.”

No one answers. She is alone.

She feels the presence of the thing, the wraith, and it scares her. She might be dead, but she is still aware, and somehow she knows that this will truly be the end, a single touch will turn her world to black.

But there, in the corner of her eye, is a crack. A grotesque grin on the wall. It is her only hope, and there is light, and the song of the universes sounds from the other side. 

She has not heard that song in a lifetime. 

A single touch is all it takes for the world to turn to nothing. A single touch is all it takes for the world to turn to everything. To air, to breathing, to scents, to wind, to life.

And as she stands before a big blue box, golden dress exchanged for a purple jacket and black slacks, she smiles. Feels the skin stretch, the muscles contract. It is not just living: it is being alive.

"Rose," he says. "You’re alive!"

Rose. That is her name. And his is the Doctor. She had almost forgotten.

And as she feels her heart beating, she knows she is free.


	12. Chapter 12

He writes his name on her skin. Of course, it’s not his birth name, the name he was given, the name he never wanted for himself, but rather his chosen name, the only name he’ll ever want her to know. Presses his fingers into her back, writing Doctor in many of the languages he knows. English, High Gallifreyan, New Mandarin.

She’s so soft, he wants to burrow himself into her, to press his face into her hair and just let her hold him. So soft it makes him want to weep. She’s a paradox, both fragile and sturdy, the hands of a working woman, the eyes of a goddess. On the cusp of womanhood, she waits for him, the old man, to fly before she spreads her wings. At once nervous and secure, worried that he’ll love another while she’s here, hopeful that he’ll love again after she’s gone. 

He’s never really seen a woman the way he sees her. (Of course, he sees them all differently). Never wanted one so desperately. He wonders if he ever will again. The romantic in him says perhaps. The rationalist in him hopes not, for his own sake.

She looks at him from over her bare shoulder, quirks her lips at the sight of him hard again. Meets his eyes. Turns onto her back.

He crawls over her. Kisses her lips, her cheeks, her eyelids, her neck. Lies down onto her body, feels her press up into him. Her breasts against his chest. Her legs sliding around his waist, opening herself to him. He hears Rose sigh as he slides into her. She’s so wet, it’s so good, and there’s so much he wants to say to her, how he feels, what she does to him, how gorgeous she is with her head thrown back and her neck bared to him.

"Doctor!" she gasps, head falling back to his shoulder. He feels her pressing her lips against his neck and slip her hands down to his arse, clutching at him and pulling him in deeper. 

He tries to put off the inevitable: calculus, geometry, geography, chemistry, physics, simple multiplication, oh—

She comes on a low moan, and it’s such a lovely sound, the timbre of her voice, the sweetness of it all. 

He follows her into release with whispered pleas, things like: don’t leave me, stay forever, let this storm pass.

When he opens his eyes, he sees her smiling up at him. She is the sun, the stars, the moon—she is too beautiful, and too kind, and too human to last for long.

And he thinks it might kill him.


	13. Chapter 13

They run for years and years. The rush of the fight, of defending humanity, drives them each day, each second. Freelancing gives Martha a chance to be herself in ways that UNIT never allowed for. There’s a gun the size of Tish’s daughter in her arm, she hasn’t showered in two days and money is shorter than it’s ever been for her. But there’s freedom, there’s no bureaucracy, and sometimes there’s even really great sex. 

And she rarely thinks of the Doctor these days. But when she does, she remembers his face on that day with the Sontarans, the last time she saw him, when she and Mickey were newlyweds on a mission in France. He’d looked so tired, so drained, and she wondered at the time, what could cause a person like him to lose all of his will?

It was a goodbye, she thinks. She wonders, even now, if he’d been dying. No regeneration, endless life over. Batteries depleted.

"Got a call from Liang," Mickey says from the other room. "There’s a plane leaving tonight at seven for Hong Kong if you’re interested."

She rolls her eyes, sets her weapon down on their table. “We just got home.”

He walks into the room and smirks. “He says there’s mutant pigs shooting lasers out of their eyes.”

Martha picks up her gun.


	14. Chapter 14

He’s sitting on a park bench in 2012 when a woman sits beside him. “I always wanted to meet her. Rose Tyler—what a beautiful name,” she says, fiddling with the vortex manipulator on her arm. The Doctor stiffens, both at the forwardness of this woman and the name of the girl he’d just left behind in 2005.

"I saw pictures, you know. Had to go searching on my own—my old fellow isn’t exactly the type to share his girlfriends." He frowns, intrigued despite his desire to be alone. "A beautiful name for a beautiful girl."

"Who are you?" He tries to take a good look at her, but it is dark out and the moon is hidden by the trees. Also, she might be wearing a perception filter. "How do you know about Rose Tyler?"

She grins at him. “So many questions, so little time.” He stands up, tiring of this woman. “I bet she’s worth it.”

"Worth what?"

"Asking  _twice_.”


	15. Chapter 15

She runs on the days he’s not around. She wants to stay in shape, so she runs and runs and runs through parks and the city. She goes to the gym and rides her bicycle and rents yoga videos on the telly.

Now that he’s a new man, he certainly must have new tastes. New wants and hopes and desires. He visits less frequently, twice a month at the most, and it sort of breaks her heart. There are traces of other people—other women—on board his magnificent ship, the stale hint of expensive perfume and a fitted red jacket lying on the rail that she’s never seen before. He must have forgotten to clean up after his new companion.

And she thinks it’s fair—she’s gotten herself a proper career, after all, and a sort-of boyfriend who doesn’t wear bowties and feeds her dog when she’s gone, who stays over at her flat even when she’s too tired to shag, and who she definitely maybe loves.

It occurs to her one day when she catches him looking at her like he used to before the regeneration, that perhaps he’s trying to make it easier for her to leave. Perhaps it has nothing to do with his own desires.

That’s so infuriatingly him, she thinks. Trying to make her choices for her. But there’s a time for leaving and a time for staying, and she knows she’ll take what she can get until there’s no more to receive.

She runs until she realizes she hasn’t seen his face in years. And then she stops. Walks her dog. Shags her husband.

And she barely even cries in the shower.


	16. Chapter 16

_Tell me, he whispers into her ear when they have finished,_ when they are clinging to each other as if their hands alone turn fiction into reality. _Tell me all you have seen, all you have done. Everything._

 

She tastes blood on her tongue. It’s metallic and tangy as she licks it away from her chapped lips, and for once, she thinks she might just bleed to death in this storm. She’s never allowed herself to consider death a possibility, but that’s foolish, really. _For you, I would die a thousand times and still stand up after I have bled myself dry._

Bitter wind strikes her cheeks, and oh how her body aches underneath her leather jacket and trousers. Her wrist watch ticks so softly she can hardly hear it, but it’s there, a guiding force, a reminder. That all of her suffering compares little to centuries of crushing loneliness.

Siberia isn’t a likely destination for her Doctor, she thinks as she fades away with the push of a button.

 

She arrives in a world she’s never seen before. It’s warm and bright and so very red, and for a moment, she wonders if her Doctor has been here. Surely he has, for he has seen the most spectacular things, and this planet with its crimson carpet certainly beats most places she’s been.

What she soon realizes, however, is that the red flowers underneath her feet release toxins that, while basically harmless, engulf her in a series of hallucinations so profound that she ends up weeping over her Doctor’s lifeless body, screaming until she vomits all over him and he disappears.

And she is alone, again.

 

Casablanca is warm and dry, but she can’t stay long because it hurts. She remembers being perched on a couch, humming _As Time Goes By_ along with Ilse, sobbing into a popcorn bowl and his shoulder when Rick relives memories of Paris, quoting that final scene so perfectly that her Doctor challenged her to a film line-off.

He won, but only because she had only seen the Godfather twice.

They watched Casablanca the night before she fell through a wall.

 

And then, little by little, things start to align themselves. She meets Donna but doesn’t know it. She watches her Doctor, back when he was all big ears and blue eyes, as Kennedy gets shot. She sees her Doctor with the ginger woman she met weeks before and mentally kicks herself for not noticing it before. She’s lost in thought until she hears the familiar sound of a big blue box fading away.

She finds her Doctor, but he’s dead and that’s not right, so she guides Donna to her own death.

And she’s so close, she can feel the void stuff vibrate around her.

 

 _Okay,_ she murmurs as she succumbs to sleep. _I will tell you everything._


	17. Chapter 17

It’s been two weeks, six days, eleven hours, thirty-seven minutes and 24.448534 seconds since he last saw Rose. He stares at the marble block in front of him, chisel in one hand, mallet in the other. Time to free Rose’s spirit from this thing, he thinks and smiles, enjoying a quiet joke at the expense of his melodramatic tutor.

He places the point of the chisel on the stone and says a quick prayer to his Fortuna.

The damn thing shatters.

 

It’s been three weeks, four days and exactly sixteen hours since he last saw Rose.

The statue is coming along, as much as any statue can come along while its creator is determinedly not creating it. Old Michelangelo had raged on for an hour at him after he’d gone through three marble slabs in as many days, and he’s got one last shot.

He doesn’t really need the reference photo on Rose’s mobile, but it helps keep him company in his room at night, while he’s waiting for the sun to rise and for the servant who lights his fire to appear. Michelangelo prefers his students to stay with him while they are under his tutelage, so instead of resting on board the TARDIS, the Doctor has a servant and a fireplace and a creaky bed that smells like dust.

I miss you, he says to the screen-sized picture. Naturally, it doesn’t respond.

 

It’s been five weeks, two days, eleven hours, fifty-three minutes and seventeen seconds precisely since he last saw Rose.

He’s scared he’s forgotten her laugh.

But when he looks at the rough face of his statue, he remembers.

Oh, he remembers everything.

 

Six weeks in, he’s got her bum and face finished. Her breasts are pert, if incomplete, and there’s dust all over his suit. In his hair. He’s not bothered to style it for at least a month, and it’s grown a bit too shaggy in the back.

She’s beautiful, as lovely as she’s ever been, and there is life in her statue-eyes, he thinks.

Just waiting to be released.

 

Sometimes, he comes down to the studio at night and holds her hand.

Whispers the things he longs to say into her ear.

Knows his secrets are safe with her.

His Fortuna.


	18. Chapter 18

He bites into the apple, chews for a moment and then rolls his eyes. Well, this is just typi—

He passes out, falls flat on his face as the witch-type-person who gave him his nasty treat laughs and laughs and laughs.

 

In the wood, she wanders around with the dwa—little people. She’s even wearing a bright red dress, and it has been a while since she’s been able to work on her tan, so she’s certain she’s in for a bit of trouble, if she remembers the story properly.

With any luck, she’ll get a snog out of the whole thing, but then it’ll probably come from a real prince, since the Doctor’s so utterly inept and emotionally stunted.

 

When she finds the Doctor sleeping in a glass coffin, she wastes no time in breaking the spell.

After she catches the poison-apple-growing alien, of course.


	19. Chapter 19

She opens her eyes. Hears the familiar vworp vworp of his magical machine that’s haunted her dreams for years (her whole life), sits up and for a moment, she is twenty-one again, and it is the night before her wedding, and she breathes deeply because the year is 1942, she is in New York City of all places, and he said he’d never see her again. Never ever.

She reminds herself, as her gaze falls to Rory where he lies beside her, undisturbed (as always), that it wouldn’t be the first time he lied to her.

She can’t quite help the hope that blossoms within her breast as she slips out of bed. And then she’s racing down the stairs, careful not to wake her husband as she pads down the hallway in her socks and slippers.

There’s no blue box, no bowtie or whirring green light. No bumbling fool of a friend she once knew, no curly-haired woman with mystery in her eyes, no words for the anger she feels.

She snaps. Rages against a cruel, cruel world, a world without her Doctor, a world without the stars and her daughter and freedom. She falls to the floor, her years of grief and bitterness rising and rising and rising through her, and she sobs into her elbow and prays to a god who she does not believe in anymore, prays that she’ll have the courage to live a life that is honest and brave and righteous, now that her home is lost to her, now that her oldest friend is gone. Now that the stars are just a bit too far away to touch. Now that distant worlds are only myths.

And then, she hears it.

The sound of the universe.

There is no TARDIS to find, of course, but she has her memories, and her mind as sharp as ever, and she will live the life of Amy Pond for the rest of her days, during the night, while she sleeps, while Amelia Williams lies awake in bed.


	20. Chapter 20

She’s got a pair of denim shorts on, the kind that come up really high but show a ton of leg, and a worn t-shirt on top, and he’s utterly enchanted. She dances in the crowd of the concert, shakes her hips and throws her hands up in the air, laughing and singing along.

"Are you having fun?" he shouts over the din.

"What?"

"I said, ‘are you having fun?’"

Rose grins and nods, but it sort of seems like she’s nodding in time to the raging guitars and the hammering drums. She winks at him and sips her beer, gets a bit of the froth on her upper lip.

At some point, someone passes her a joint, and before the Doctor can say anything (like what would your mother think?) she’s inhaling and her eyes fall shut and then she’s exhaling, and oh, that’s right, she’s done this before.

She has a whole life before him, a whole existence full of sweaty concerts that he’s not a part of, and before he realizes what he’s doing, he’s got the joint in between his fingers and she’s resting her head on his shoulder, whispering encouragements into his ear.

Well, it’s not like he hasn’t tried it before.

 

They’re on the road in a beat-up red Chevy Camaro. She’s got the radio blasting the Stones, as if she hadn’t gotten enough of them the night before. She sings along, making up harmonies left and right, and he’s so charmed by her he can barely even speak.

She runs a hand through her messy blonde hair and lights a cigarette.

"Where’d you get that, then?"

"Jerry gave me a pack," she says.

He frowns. “And who is Jerry?”

She rolls her eyes. “You know, from last night? We went to his party after the show?” He shrugs and turns left at the intersection. “Don’t be jealous, Doctor. If you bought me some, I’d take them, too.”

"No money," he replies, eyes on the road and decidedly not on her as she licks her lips.

"What kinda date are you?"

"The kind that isn’t gonna fuel your addiction."

Rose grins. “I’ll have to go find Jerry again. Good shag.”

He nearly stops the car. “What?”

She’s laughing so hard she snorts. “I imagine he’d be a good shag. I wouldn’t know.”

"Well, good."

"And why is that good?"

He shrugs again. “It just is.”

She smiles to herself.


	21. Chapter 21

These days, traveling takes a little more time than it used to. At the airport, they grin to each other and locate their luggage, a couple of bright blue suitcases the Doctor bought at a consignment shop back in London.

The New York air is warm and hazy. He checks in at their hotel, a small boutique-y place Rose likes. The lobby is fresh and modern. Photos of models in 60’s outfits line the wall behind the front desk, and violet armchairs beckon the tired travelers. Behind them is a curved stairway and a rather cool looking set of elevators.

A man working for concierge offers to take their luggage, but Rose waves him off. “I like to do my own dirty work,” she says. “But thank you.”

Their room is spacious, but the large bed is pretty much all that they need. Rose opens the curtains and gazes out the window, smiling when the Doctor comes up behind her and wraps his arms around her waist. He presses his lips against her neck.

She sighs contentedly. “It’s so… vast.”

“It’s a magical city,” he murmurs. “And it only gets better when the sun goes down.”

 

They order pizza at Lombardi’s, the Doctor’s favorite place in the city. “It’s the oldest pizzeria in Manhattan, you know,” he says as they sit down at their table. Rose loves plain old cheese, but the Doctor wants pepperoni, so they get two pies and end up sharing with the table next to theirs. The family has three young girls who immediately take a liking to the Doctor. Rose watches him tease the littlest child, no more than three, with her slice, and she feels warmth grow in her chest, a slow burning sort of want like fireflies in her breast.

He gets sauce on his chin. She licks it off, and the oldest girl squeals with delight.

When they’re done, Rose pays the bill and leads the Doctor away from his new friends and back out into the city. It’s gotten dark out, but the air hums with promise.

They catch a cab. The night is young but they are tired and jetlagged, so they decide to head to their hotel—there’s a bar on the roof where they can relax and enjoy each other in the moonlight until they’re ready for bed.

She curls into his side, wrapping herself in his arm, and presses a kiss against his throat as they come to a stop light. He looks out the window and tightens his arm around her shoulder.

“What are you thinking about?” she asks.

He looks back at her and smiles. “The complex nature of the universe. How fast hummingbirds’ wings flap. Your face when you come.”

“That’s quite a list.” She gazes up at him, meets his dark eyes before pulling him down by the back of his head. Their lips meet, soft and dry, like they know they’re in the backseat of a cab and they’re not going to get away with much.

He pulls away, eyes still shut. “I love this city.”

 

They find their way into their room after several drinks and a few heated snogs. He pushes the keycard into the slot, opens the door when the tiny light turns green, and pulls her into the room so fast she nearly trips in her heels.

“This is why I should have worn the trainers,” she says as he shuts the door. “I’m gonna have blisters in the morning.”

He makes a show of looking down her bare legs, smiling when she kicks her shoes off. “As long as you keep that delightful little skirt on.” She rolls her eyes. “Or take it off, now that I think of it.”

She pulls on the zip.

 

The next day, he takes her down to the Statue of Liberty. To the World Trade Center memorial. They dance in Zuccotti Park, walk down Wall Street and ride the subway just for the hell of it. They get off right near the Museum of Natural History, share a gyro and spend the rest of the afternoon in the planetarium. They count the stars they’ve seen up close.

“When the TARDIS is ready, where do you want to go first?” she asks, voice a whisper in his ear. He smiles down at her and looks up.

“That one,” he says, pointing to the east. “Yeah, that one.”


	22. Chapter 22

She is hidden in plain sight. She is the stark wanderer, the woman with the words, the final hope for humanity. She stands alone deep within the freezing crevices of Mt. Hotaka while blood runs into the rivers of Japan, while the headless bodies of children turn the Pacific brown.

Once, she stays with a family in Nagasaki, before the purge. There is no escaping this fate, they say as she wraps her wounded knee. The grandmother, a determined little woman with skin like leather and a smile like Christmas, holds out a knife to her and nods.

I found this the day the sky burned with the rage of a thousand suns, she croaks. We were a proud people then. Proud, but human. We are still human. We are still proud. They will break us, but we will live on in the survivors, in you. In our blood as it marks this Earth.

They sing the lament of a nightingale as they march to the sea, and she hears their cries in her sleep.

She does not bathe in Japan. The snow dries her dark skin and her hair curls for the first time in years. She looks to be a wild thing, fearsome with a flame in her breast.

The snow falls each night. The hypothermia sets in. Still, they sing.

Still, she rises.


	23. Chapter 23

Her room is dark. Blue curtains frame the night sky, dark and clear above the rolling hills of the Tyler estate. The moon peeks inside the window, leaks its light onto the floor. In the corner of his eye, he sees a shooting star.

“Make a wish,” she murmurs as she lays on the bed, reaching up to wind the fairy lights hanging from the wrought iron headboard around her wandering fingers. “It really works. I should know.”

He sits beside her. Runs trembling fingers through her hair, studies the way the lights play off of her skin, bare except for her bra and knickers, bits of pink lace that she wore while soaring across dimensions. “How?” She smiles a glorious thing and unclasps her bra.

And then the levee breaks. Hope pours from his lips, all the little things he wants to do to her, all the things he’s always wanted to do to her, and he whispers these into her collarbone, into the gentle curve of her stomach, into her palms.

Her giggles turn to gasps when he latches on to her nipple, lips suckling and fingers smoothing over her terrain, climbing her mountains and falling into her valleys. She sighs, and it’s the sweetest sound in any universe, and he’s heard them all. Rushing water, crackling fire, children’s laughter.

When he sinks into her, when they move together on top of rumpled blue sheets, when she cries out for her Doctor, when there is only touch and taste, this is his wish come true. In her sweat, in her veins, in her heat, a million burning suns answer: here is your reward. Time quickens and slows until there exists only one single moment.

“I wished that you’d take me home,” she says, later. “And here I am.”


End file.
